South Korea's new soldiers look a little Starcraft-y; I wonder why

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CNET has decided that South Korea’s next-generation battle gear makes soldiers look Halo-esque. A very 21st-century assessment! But as Yahtzee has pointed out time after time, space marines are perhaps the most ubiquitous character in video game history, and even if you don’t want to go as far back as Space Hulk, you still have to give credit where credit’s due. And in Korea, more often than not, the answer to any given question is “Starcraft.” With channels airing Starcraft matches 24/7 and player count in the hundreds of billions, it’s really the only video game from which the country is likely to take cues for its national defense.

As for the battle gear itself, it looks pretty awesome, although traditionally wraparound helmets have been avoided in combat due to decreased field of vision — troublesome, that. But with a personal cooling system and protection from both missile and laser attacks (!), South Korean soldiers should be sitting pretty even if they do get ambushed from their blind spot. Zug zug!